The Adventures Of My Hair And My Husband

A long time ago, when I was first married, I had 32 inch long hair. It was light brown , a little reddish with some blond streaks in there. The only thing it wasn't was black.

I liked my hair but it was very thick and heavy.  I could be dragged by my ponytail without it hurting hardly at all. It took forever to dry when you washed it. Forget blow drying it, it took way too long. Mostly I kept it in a braid that started at the top of my head and ran down to the middle of my back. I don't know why I kept growing it. To see where it would go, I guess. My husband said it was a rite of passage in our house to pull my freakishly long hair from places that it shouldn't be. When I was pregnant and my hair went through a phase of thinning as hormones are wont to cause, I would walk through our house and find a wad of my very long hair wrapped around my feet.

Long hair wasn't really stylish yet. I identified myself with my hair. It probably lost me acting work. I wanted it to go away but was too stubborn to do anything about it. So it was sort of a relief to have brain surgery.

They shaved a huge piece of my hair along the right side of my head in the MRI room the day before surgery in preparation of one last look see and to set the "carve here" stickers with dots marking the surgeon's pattern of attack. It looked like a half-ass-ed demented mohawk. I said, "Hey, aren't you going to take off the rest?" The surgeon's p.a. said that a lot of people only wanted part off it removed so they could grow less back. I told him that three feet of hair will take awhile to catch up with so keeping the rest may not be a great idea.

So while he shaved away the rest, I watched years of my thick hair fall to the ground and felt my head get lighter and lighter. I walked around Park Slope with my new shining head with its peculiar ornamentation feeling a little beautiful even, despite the fact that someone was going to mar it permanently the next day. I went out for dinner...possibly my last supper in my mind....with my friends and then, when my husband came over from Sunset Park with our big old station wagon to pick me up, he arrived bald. In solidarity he shaved his lovely thick dark hair too. We got in our boat of a car with our little girl in the back seat, two shining beautiful best friends driving off to get ready for the scary future together, as bald as two cue balls.

Even now, all these years later, when I think of this man doing this for me, I remember what a tremendous selfless act that was, think of all of the trials life has put us through together and survived and how much I love him. How could you not?

Afterward, when the surgery was past and the staples were taken out of the scar that went from the top of my right forehead to behind my ear, I bleached the short growth so that the bright red line didn't pop out as much. It is long again, now unnaturally white. I wish that I could just let it go back to my real color but I am afraid almost a decade after surgery, just what that real color may be. And once again, I am enslaved to my hair, bleaching it whenever the roots show themselves, getting longer and longer until I must stop it from going further. I'd shave it for him, I think. I'd do it for him too. Still. You never know where your hair is going to take you.

Family Values

I hate what the right wing conservative movement did to the term "Family Values." I also used to be sceptical about the whole concept of what exactly identifies a family value. As we get closer to Christmas, not knowing what next year brings, I get it more. And I think the definition is not nearly as pompous as the aforementioned group has deemed correct.

My life has always been peppered with fear. Fear of loss of my family that I grew up with, fear of never being able to go home to see my mom and dad, fear of losing my family now. Well, you know what? 2/3's of those fears have come to fruition. If my family isn't dead entirely, a large percentage of them are and the home that I would go to on the holidays is gone.  I cannot control everything in my future, but I can grab onto it with both hands now and hold the people most dear to me, the family...Husband, Wife and Child that we created voluntarily and organically through our marriage and love..... and make it the best damned holiday that we ever had.

We have our tree. We plan our meal. We forget about expenses and buy all of the things that we can to make our child's happiness come to a joyous peak on Christmas morning while she is still trying to keep the idea of Santa alive as long as she can despite, I suspect, her knowledge of the actual facts. We share egg nog in various alcohol/non-alcohol versions. We hold hands. We light the decorations in sparkling all over the living room. We will bake cookies and cook ham and have Christmas morning Sunday bacon, inundating the child with sights and smells that she can carry with her into the future when maybe not all of the family is there, when maybe the presents aren't as good or the holiday starts out in a place that doesn't feel exactly like home.

With everything in life, it is best to value what is in front of us. It goes by so fast. People leave. Families fall to the wayside as different wants and needs surface. Now is the time when we can value what we have, our family  that is here with us right this minute using the natural progression of the Christmas season to bolster it.

So, yeah, I believe in family values. Loving them while you have them, doing everything that you can to put them first and make them happy, valuing the joy of togetherness because it may not be here tomorrow. It could last until you die if you are very very lucky but you never know if this is the last day you have with them together and I hold onto that with my whole heart. Merry Christmas, the loves of my life, My Family. Let's make it the best one of our lives.

Parenthood Peace Treaty

My daughter was an extraordinary archer. We found out by accident, when our petite flower picked up my mother's 50 year old weapon and popped off a clean shot. Her tiny piano wire arms pulling a third of her body weight.

We brought her to a school that was tied to the JOAD program. That is short for Junior Olympic Archery Development. There was a kid in her school with a world record. His parents built an archery range through the middle of their house so he could shoot inside in the winter. Her coach had tutored Olympians. When he saw her, he begged us to keep her there for six years when she would be open to opportunities like that. She was that gifted. We would post her scores and pictures of her targets with the arrows sticking out of the center gold on Facebook that our friends and relatives would cheer on.

We don't have much money. Our families saw the passion that she had and did everything they could to support her for two years. They paid for classes, brought her equipment. Her first year, Santa gave her her very own bow so that she didn't have to rent it for school. 

Every Saturday my husband and I would drive her 45 minutes to the school. We would tie it into our weekly Costco grocery shopping. One of us would sneak out and bring back coffee. We would buy her a snickers bar and, later, M&Ms from the store in the school so that we would get through to lunch. It was a family affair that went on for over a year, with the daughter our central focus, growing in ranks. Breaking over 200 and continuing to a much harder level.

Money knocked us out one summer. We were just not around long enough weekends to justify the full price we had to pay (usually in the fall we were pro-rated). When we finally returned, the daughter's body had hit a growth spurt, something very hard on an archer because the bones and the muscles grow at separate times. The coach fell ill and the teacher running the class didn't seem to do much more than run through the process. The daughter was in tears, feeling the pressure of, in her head, failure. Her score fell way below what would have been her normal growth rate. She grew sad and discouraged. When her coach returned, he tried his best to lift her enthusiasm back to where it had been but you could tell, she just felt like a failure even though no one else thought so.

The summer came around again. Our family once again couldn't justify the money. The daughter had lost the joy and the family lost our Saturdays together when we would wake up bitching that we had to drive together so far away every week. That we had made this commitment to each other and cheer on the child that eventually lost the joy in  her gift, our family event.

We spoke to her about returning. We realize that it has to be her choice, that by forcing her it will kill the love for the sport entirely that she stepped into with such wonderful talent. You could tell that we were offering her the option to try fully expecting her to fold. And she didn't.

Today I take her back to the range, just to shoot for fun. The way it was before it became something that made her feel like a failure because her body gave out on her for a little while. Maybe even I will try it. I shouldn't. I can't afford it. But it may be worth it just to make her laugh and want to come back more.

 I miss those awful cold mornings burning gas to go watch a child be brilliantly dangerous with a medieval weapon, running out to Dunks and sitting together on the metal chairs trying not to whoop when she hit the gold with her dad video taping the scores on his phone's camera, "And she shoot....ooh! A nine! Nice, Baby!" Maybe someday she will love it again. Maybe some day our family can pile into the car on a Saturday morning and stop at Costco on the way home. Either way, I hope this is a childhood memory of her family she will keep in her heart when she is older, touching  her old bow fondly that I hope she will always keep near by, proud of her great talent that will always be there.

The Year Of The Protestor

I went to a very small school when "The Prom".....a prom so fierce it had a "The" attached to it at all times.....was thrown by the Junior class. We only had one because the gymnasium could only take the distraction of so many activities sporadically in a school that had all classes Kindergarten through 12th grade using it. I was on the prom committee and I took my duty very very seriously.

The Prom Committee had two advisers. I could only remember one though because he is engraved in my head for eternity and here's why. The Prom Committee's duty was all encompassing. We chose the punch, we chose the decorations, we chose The Prom Band. In order to judge the proficiency of our The Prom Band candidates, they were played on a tape deck in the central school's main office into a microphone that aired into the classroom  on the upstairs "not for elementary grade students" floor. The quality was wonky at best.

The adviser that I can remember was a gym teacher. A large man with a booming voice with mannerisms that inspired snickering and disrespect from most of the puberty ridden jackasses with homophobic tendencies in the school. They called him "Gay-o." It was awful and I felt bad about that but not bad enough to say anything and draw attention to myself.  I had been picked on pretty fiercely myself in the past and things had finally turned around. The adviser was unaware of my sympathy and entirely aware of the disrespect. So when I was trying so so hard to hear The Next Prom Band Candidate and he continued to speak, I shushed. Not at him. Just....shushed.

But that is not what he heard. He heard, "Shut. Up." Or probably even, "Shut the fuck up." He stormed out of the room. A few minutes later, I hear over the loud speaker, "Jessica Curtis, please report to the principals office." And I wet myself a little.

I was terrified of being bad in school. This, ironically, coming from a kid who smoked cigarettes in the woods behind my house in the 5th grade. It's not that I never did bad things. I just didn't want to be perceived as disrespectful and a thug. Being seen as bad was a fear on phobic levels. This was my worst nightmare. I don't know what I did but whatever it was, I was innocent.

Thug

 I spent three days in the principals office refusing detention. The adviser said that I was delinquent, snarky (or whatever it was we called it in the '80's), and intentionally attacked him. I cried. I denied. And I protested. I had never done such a thing in my life, whatever it was I was supposed to have done. I wasn't going to detention. It was wrong.

The second day into my protest,  the principal tried to negotiate it into palatible terms, "Hey. It's only detention. It's not like its going on your permanent record. Just take it and get on with life." And I would respond, "But I didn't dooooooooo anyth-th-th-th---," insert hysterical weeping. The adviser argued. I cried. 

On the third day, the principal acknowledged that I was one of the most stubborn human beings on the planet,  that we were going to be in that office through summer break if it kept going that way and gave up. 

It takes a lot of anger and fear for Annoyed to evolve into Protest. It has to become something so intolerable that you are willing to put yourself into a gravely uncomfortable situation. In my minor case, it was the achilles heel of being seen as something that I never in a million years would be. It was an injustice that I could not let slide. 

The husband has informed me that Time magazine has named The Protestor as their person of the year for 2011. Interesting and wonderful to reward the brave. Bravo, Time Magazine! I love it. It is deserved.

Thousands and thousands of people around the planet hit that point this year, the point of intolerance. To give up their comfortable homes and lives for indefinite periods of time because they believed that their presence would make a difference when the joined others with similar ideals. Some died, suffered criminal abuse, lost their families . Some lived in tents in the middle of urban sprawl for months. Many were attacked by the people that were supposed be protecting them by  law. And many many many changed their world and ours. Because they knew that if they stuck their heels in and committed to their beliefs, they could say that they lived their lives with integrity and did something instead of standing by helplessly, accepting the raw deal that was being given to them. Enough. Intolerant. Protest.

Shampoop

I hate certain scents. It's hard to tell if I am actually allergic to them or just hate them so much that they dry out my mouth and make it hard to breathe. Things like fabric softener and Mountain Fresh Scent in laundry detergent. If a person has really loaded it on, I can't be on the same side of the room with them.  So, in lieu of risking a wheezy whiney wife and having to buy a 10 dollar bottle of laundry soap, the husband began to make our own. And, besides having to own a large pot to stir it in and a place to put it, it is fairly simple. And wicked inexpensive. It made us take a step back and begin to suspect that there was very little reason for the prices attached to these all natural green products beyond greed and we began to look for other things to make, leading us into the wild and woolly world of home made cleansing and body products.

Okay. Maybe not wild. Or woolly, really. But I live with a scientist. Figuring out percentages in ounces can be fun. I swear.

We have begun to put together different products to start a line of skin creams, body oils and soaps. I don't want to tell you how because when we build our Etsy empire to be followed by our mail order empire to be followed by our vendor table at street fair empire, I want you to NEED us. But the truth is, you really don't. The advantage we have over you is that we invested in the basics...which pay for themselves really quickly....and we have been experimenting with different varieties of smells and textures.  Also, when it comes to soap, there is the issue of some math to be done to make the fat vs. lye balanced. But, between you and me and the wall, it takes balls to charge 5 bucks for a bar of soap if you knew how much a batch costs and how much you get in it. Unless there is money cooked into that fancy hippy soap, you are getting schtupped.

The laundry soap costs about three bucks a batch. All natural. Three ingredients. Cleans great. It looks a little weird, but so what.

I found a recipe for dishwashing detergent. Again under three bucks for a gallon of this stuff.

We also make our own mozzerella cheese. Super super easy. Renin, Citric acid, milk and some salt. Takes twenty minutes. If you screw it up, it is ricotta.

The husband makes his own beer and wine. Okay. THAT is a little more expensive because you have to have equipment, but, really, after all is said and done, he gets a lot of hootch that would cost way more in the store and he has say about the elements that goes into it.

In the long run, it is good to know the basic elements that make a product work just to know what you is rubbing into your skin or onto your dishes that you eat from. But people who normally will analyze their food products down to the cow the milk came from don't think twice about what is exactly in the soap you are dumping into the clothes you are wearing as long as it is biodegradable and "green."

What is it? Really? At least  consider that if you look at the recipes for some of these things, you will know what you are actually paying for. Because you will be astonished at how often you are paying for packaging and profit and then a little teeny bit of ingredient. And maybe you might want to take a shot at making your own.

PTSD Night Time.

I used to hide until I could pass out and wake up when it seemed brighter and less dangerous. Till the feet on the floorboards stomping loudly finally came to an end. Until the voices stopped accusing and name calling. Till it would pass and we would have a few days to embrace the false sense of security that lay like a week glass over the monsters that rumbled under our world. Every time in adulthood when the night came around, I loved the safety of the peace far away from the monsters. Every time it was rattled, I felt betrayed, especially when the brain couldn't process the thoughts the same way, waking up every day not knowing how to  think anymore, what new survival tools existed to keep me going. The world looked different and the new brain made me even more askew than the odd earthquake seizures that shook the rug out from under us. Frustration of helplessness and absolute exhaustion compounded by his frustration of not mattering when it wasn't convenient for my brain to be able to handle the needs of anything beyond survival. All of the guilty monsters eating at me for not being good enough to feel too hard and  remind me that they were always there, now eating at him every night too.  So I would hide in the night. Like I did as a child. Shut it all out. All of the bad monsters. Until now when the closet got too full of other new nightmares to hide them.

Ma Could Run Fast At 70....For Ma

My Ma is a physically remarkable person. I won't tell you how old she is because she thinks it is a horrible faux pas. Let's say she is way past 70 and doesn't look much older than that. It's a lucky genetic thing. Not everyone gets one of those.

Middle age is insulting. It does things to your body that you can't believe is happening to you. Like you were going to escape the same thing that has happened to every human being luck enough to survive such a thing. Aging, you bastard!

Sure, there are things that you can do no matter what your genetic code that is delivered to you to make it less horror show...to you. Exercise. Don't drink and smoke too much (aka the recipe for wrinkly bloat). Stretch. Don't stress. You know. The stuff that they tell you about in the thousands and thousands of articles in magazines under the sneaky guise, "Secrets To Anti-Aging." It's called taking care of yourself. Duh.

But sticking botulism in your face? Sucking the love handles out of your sides or under your chin just makes you less floppy in one place? Dying your hair a color that isn't fooling anyone? It ain't going to stop the clock. In fact, sometimes it just makes you look wrong.

There are perks to aging. You are over 35.  It is now. It isn't the someday that you were dreading. Youthful years of adulthood are very very short in the scheme of a lifetime and when you cross the ranks of middle age, the symptoms of aging arrive out of nowhere.   Those tight butts have a real quick shelf life. Reproduction years are waning and the biological reason for attracting others is fading out. Folk's hair  falls out but maybe your hair was supposed to be temporary,  the propensity to gain weight due to build will not allow any leeway at all ever again (kiss cheating on diets goodbye). Those love handles that have been giving you grief are going to pick up power against you in the fight but dammit you have great legs, your eyes will have wrinkles, your chin jawline will seem a little less tight but your little nose looks even more adorable in this face. It is supposed to be that way. And its going to happen.

At a certain age, you hit a point when being disappointed in what was given to you is just sad because you are finally at a time where you can be who you are. Doesn't mean it can't be the best exercised healthy form but shy of unnatural acts, it is your natural process. Trying to find approval in a youthful environment with the expectations of a youthful body is just going to make you feel like shit being beautiful exactly the way you are. If you are being punished for being your age, fuck 'em if they don't like it. You earned this body and there is relief in not having to be worried that you have to envy everyone with body parts you didn't naturally have in your genetic code.

My time bomb will go off completely one of these days, just hopefully on my Ma's clock with folks  who find me perfect the way I am supposed to be or at least rejoice in how great I look next to people my own age. To me it seems like there is nothing sadder than see a person abuse themselves for being natural. Not lazy. Just natural.

The Box

Someone said the loveliest thing to me the other day. He said, "How are you?" And he meant it. It wasn't one of those trite moments in passing, not a verbal head nod. He really wanted to hear how my insides were doing with my outsides with no premeditated coercion. It is a selfless question when it is sincere. It says I care about you and I am not thinking about myself. It meant so much to me.

We live in a society that is often overwhelming. Sometimes our own problems are more that we can handle, let alone ingesting someone else's concerns voluntarily without a "me" twist to it. I know. I think it had been years since I had said it myself until recently.

I think sometimes we build boxes around ourselves that have to do lists taped in front of our noses. It is survival. If we can tick off the list, we win till the next list goes up but we made it to the end of the first one and that is all that matters. Sometimes we try to ignore the list for awhile by going further into our box, inundating ourselves with distractions and little highs  but we always know the list is there, waiting for us with bullet points like Get Assignment Finished Or I Have No Future,  Find Self Worth Through Approval of Another, Need New Underwear, Be Skinnier So That You Are A Better Person That People Want To Have Sex With Even Though I Don't Necessarily Want It Myself Because That Would Mean Thinking Of Other People, Write A Better Joke To Make A Life, etc. It doesn't leave much room to look outside of the box to truly give ourselves to another person on a simple basis because even outside of the box we are looking at it worrying about it being there.


How are you? I am thinking of you. Not me. Let me know how it is inside of your box. See if I can help you out in there a little. My heart is here for you if you wish to use it if yours isn't feeling so great. I give a shit about another human being.


I'm trying to do that more. Think about the feelings that are out there of the people I interact with instead of how the person is effecting me. It's hard. I'm not used to it. I have been surviving too long in my box. But, here's the catch with that stupid box, until you can see past the box of anger and fear and resentment and frustration....boxes are never made out of good feelings.... I strongly suspect a person  can't get out of it, can't remember how wonderful "How Are You Doing?" feels to ask effortlessly without the string of "and how do you feel about me?" attached to it. It's a box. That's what they do.

Anger Sandwich

The daughter has been stomping around a lot lately. I yelled down the hall this morning, "Don't forget your breakfast!" Then I heard her bare feet slamming into the hardwood in the living room, across the dining room, into the kitchen expounding her indigence against being TOLD WHAT TO DO with the slap of her weight.  She knocked over the cereal, then slammed a cupboard. This part wasn't intentional. She was just in a tizzy from being TOLD WHAT TO DO.

Welcome to the early stages of puberty. Or, as I like to remember it, the winds shifting before the storm. Lots of unwarranted tears, overreacting and zits. We haven't gotten to the menses part of the show. Honestly, that's the part that bothers me the least. It's pretty cut and dry. "Here, put this here thing in this place and make sure you time it so there isn't a mess." I will refrain from saying things like, "Today you are a woman," because a) its creepy and b) its not true. She would still be a kid who got a period, not a woman. A kid with a 90 pound gorilla of estrogen shoved into a 70 pound body.

I don't think the period part is knocking at the door just yet anyway. Like I was, she is super skinny which tends to deter the onset of early menstruation. I didn't hit that part of the show till way later than most kids. But the temper? The arguing like a divorce lawyer with a huge chunk of a billion dollar estate at stake? The feet stomping, door slamming, arrggghhh yelling drama? Oh yeah. Don't need a full case of the hormones to get a little overly accentuated drunk. It isn't mean. It is frustration and she hasn't developed the maturity to recognize the reactions as biological so she just HATES EVERYTHING for short stretches at a time.  With gusto.

One of the advantages of being female, especially a  closely genetically linked one, is that I've been there. Culture and society issues are much different but the feelings have not changed. My circumstances involved more complicated parental communication issues so I actually think that a lot of times the drama was exacerbated with a legitimate base for frustration.  It wasn't just me kicking up the emotions. There was  helplessness and rage against everything that were making all of the emotions dance ten times faster.  I remember this and may be able to disengage from the girl drama  from the actual issues a little easier then the men folks who haven't been there before.  And when I find the my sanity slipping, I can call the other females to remind me that I was once the cause of this frustration for my parents. Remember, remember, remember to be there when she comes home from school distressed over, in our eyes, nothing and hug her like it really is something anyway, looking for the real reasons that may be in there too even if they aren't the ones that are obvious.

I am hoping that I will  be able to produce calm or at least navigate the rapids when we hit them intelligently with empathy.  I suspect it will be like living with a sporadic mental patient, especially with my genetic code bouncing around in there. We are living in a less innocent time when there is also easier acceptance for sexual activity at an early age in schools, youtube videos on how to cut yourself, constant reminders of what you don't have and the always universal mean girls judging the drum that your are beating to except they have more access to different ways to make you feel bad.   I've watched puberty ridden people close to me run away from home, go into rehab, abuse themselves with eating disorders and cutting, and die because they just couldn't handle it. It is a scary scary world to have a girl child growing into a new vulnerable body. But I know it will have wonderful moments too. And at least I know, to her, her moment of insanity is real and rational  although it looks nuts from the outside.

There is a good child with a kind heart born with wonderful creative gifts. I will hold her hands to comfort her and remind her of this. Whether she likes it or not.

Sunday.

The husband is cooking bacon in the kitchen with "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" playing on the radio via NPR. The cats are looking at him, needy because they equate Sunday bacon smells with their "bacon Sunday," a special can of wet cat food that they receive upon the conclusion of the husband's "parade of cats." This is when he walks in a circle around the apartment and then puts the food down. The cats don't follow him as willingly as they used to but they do tolerate the rite.

The daughter is sitting at the wood chopping blog/wine rack in the kitchen with the husband's computer trying a new function in the MMO role playing game World of Warcraft, discussing how they can disguise their characters and fool the other players. I have no idea what they are talking about.  I want to learn too but am so far behind them that I am lost in the interactive dust.  They try to explain it to me. I am just happy to be here with them whether I am included in this facet of their lives or not. I tell them it looks pretty.

These are good noises. Smells. Sounds. It is Sunday, a day that we have made more and more sacred as it became apparent that three of us were living less than quality lives as a family. We made a pact, while we are still a family, that we will do everything in our power to not make plans outside of our unit. We eat dinner at the table together with a home cooked meal. We play board games. At night we have been watching tv together.

Most religions have some form of Sabbath. A day to rest. A day to go to church, pray, reflect. Just stop. It usually comes with some kind of punishment for not respecting the creator du jour. It was worship driven but the older that I get, the more I feel like it was also created for a social need. A reason for the family to come together and just be. For the world to stop coming in through every portal possible, for thoughts of stress to stop, for a human being to be given a chance to be just that, human. And, if you had one, be truly a member of your family. A chance to value each other and our time together in peace.

For a long time previous to this, we were living an existence where we would hang out in separate rooms, playing on our computers, reading, watching television. We would do things outside of the house occasionally but we never ate a meal together at the dinner table. Our plans were sporadic and lazy. The house was messier.  We weren't trying. We were accepting that this was the way our lives were until eventually our lives together began to disintegrate.

Bacon Sunday came from a happy accidental meal. Someone bought Blackforest bacon from Whole Foods and we loved it. We wanted it more. It became our Sunday thing. It was nice. Something we missed when we went out of town or one of us went to go do something else. We began to reevaluate the health of our family. We never ate together. Our child did not have structure. Unless we were traveling together in a car, there was not regular conversations as a group and our sense of stability was completely askew. Bacon Sunday was not only our favorite collective ritual, it was our only collective ritual with just father, mother and daughter. Us.

Today we are getting a Christmas tree. We wanted to make it an elaborate pursuit to find the very best. But, for right now, it looks like we have lost some of our zip on the subject. But that's okay. We still have to decorate it and I am insisting that we score a new game to play this week, something that we can kick the father's ass with (another part of Sunday is trying to beat the father who wins with unabashed huberus). Tonight we have a nice steak. Maybe find a movie to watch or just television. The three of us together, not in different rooms like we used to  be. And at the end, we will go to sleep happy for this single calm day when we can be together, appreciating the gift of family without stress and knowing that at the end of next week, Sunday will be there.

My Ukulele

For a long time now, we have been in a holding pattern. I watch my daughter during the day and work when I get it.  My husband goes to college and is finishing...finally....his PHD. We aren't living on the streets or anything. Or apartment is nice. We have clothes that get a little tattered but we can find ways to replace them when they become truly embarrassing. Some times are better than others. You can usually tell by how much we splurge on eating out. Once in a while we have enough to buy something cool, usually so that we can sell it when things aren't so good. And that's okay normally but there are two things that I regret selling. And one is my ukulele.

There is a musician named Melvern Taylor. He plays the ukulele like a champ. He makes it retro cool. He lives in Lowell and wears a porkpie hat with neat facial hair. My ex-boyfriend who used to be in charge of the music department of a huge advertising agency in NYC said that he knew who he was. Mel is that type of musician. The kind a lot of specific people know from all over because ukulele afficianados are a special breed. He was the first musician that I ever liked and sought out when we moved to Boston. And he made me want to play the uke too.

My husband has always been very kind when it comes to humoring my quirky wants. We went to Guitar Center and there was a beautiful Mitchell on sale for a little under two hundred dollars. It was fierce and fit my small hands and the hand nylon strings that didn't look as painful as guitar strings. I took it home and compared it to the Hawaiian novelty ones that we had sent from my mother in law in Honolulu . It was obviously a better instrument (although the pink one looks wicked cool). Not as good as Mel's but it had mother of pearl inlay and felt right in my hands. I would sit at my dad's old desk after I downloaded chords, trying to play songs. Or I would try to study the lessons from my Ukulele instruction manual.  Mel even gave me a names of recommended teachers.

But the money started running out again and there were so many other things that we needed besides my ukulele lessons. Eventually we fell into the inevitable pinch when I had to sell things again. My husband's guitar was sacred to me. We purchased it right before my daughter was born so that she would always be surrounded with people playing music. My husband had a beautiful voice and would sing to her. Later, we got an electric piano cheap. I held on to that second because I had dreams of our daughter learning to play and I loved banging away at it badly. We could always get another ukulele. So it went to a nice man on Craigslist who bought it for his son. I was glad that it went to an appreciative home.

We got a crappier one that my daughter drags around trying to teach herself now. She has potential. I regret never letting her play with my beautiful good one.

Some day I will get another one and I will get to keep it. Some day I will be able to buy one without thinking of it as not something to sell in a pinch but value it for what it is. A time when poverty doesn't rule our decisions and let us keep the things that we regret selling later. Not that the holding pattern has been so bad with occasional family trips and nice meals spun from creative spending.  Some of those memories will be the best days of my life. And we had our good days when I was just selling stuff to get it out of the house. But, let's say, consistently better days on the other side of education and sporadic incomes. With ukuleles.

The Day The Simpsons Die...

There is something so soothing about a relatively new episode of The Simpsons. Hell, even old ones are like chicken soup to an abused body on a bad day. I'm nauseous. I'm in bed.  I'm stressed. My feet are cold. The Simpsons are on. Who cares about the rest of it. I'm laughing.

There are some constants in life that, if you are lucky,  are always there to make you feel better. Warm blankets. Hot showers after a long day doing dirty work. A kiss on the cheek and a quick squeeze to the hand that you didn't expect. The Simpsons. It's been on for twice as long as my child has been on this planet. She literally has grown up watching them. She and her dad have watched them as a regular event of the evening....because there is an endless pool of Simpsons....since she could speak. In lieu of words to express her disappointment, she would emote a Marge disapproval moan. I use the Ralphie laugh to  communicate "I'm silly." "Doh!" is a universal,well, doh. It has been ingrained in us.

I hear that the production is now on a two year contract which normally they would renew. But this last year was touch and go. Could there someday be an end to....gulp...the comfort food of television in the near future? God, I hope no. I hope it runs until the actors drop dead at the microphone from old age. It's like marriage. As stale or wonderful as it could be sometimes (and in the 20 odd years since its been on, there has to be some lemons), you get used to the comfort of thinking its going to be there forever. And then someone goes and quits or dies.

So life will be without The Simpsons someday.  It's better not to think of it and enjoy the moment on Sundays when I knew absurd idea reflecting our society is born to the world, grateful for the endless supply of reruns that will make it seem young far longer than it really is.

Promise To My Husband Not To Emote

I'm a natural blogger. I've been writing long annoying letters and essays since I've discovered the ability to string two sentences together on paper. It is not the need to write that drives this. It is the need to communicate in a controlled form. To say what I need to say when my verbal inability to edit fails me. Which it often does. Especially in a panicked state.

Our marriage has some spectacular tests of strength, especially as of late.  Resulting from unusual circumstance, bad luck and residual damage from learned bad habits of self preservation. I honestly think there are no right or wrong as much as bad choices and....apologies for using the word twice in a paragraph....damages. Nevertheless there is anger and great fear fucking with love. And when I panic, I grab on to my lifelong life preserver...the things that has kept me alive through abuses and pain and terror....words. I need to talk. I need to analyze. I need to understand. I think most people do but I do it to death. So to my husband who is in many aspects an angel to tolerate my quirks these many years (but, to be fair it works both ways, Gorgeous), I apologize for all of the dead horses I have beaten trying to convey my love and fear and I thank you for listening as long as you could tolerate it. Your kindness has not been unnoticed.


The writing kind of folk that I am born into have a blessing. When you see a new child grow into their new world, they always hit a point of exasperation when they haven't learned to talk but they  are desperate to communicate.  I don't think we ever forget the gift of finally being able to tell people what feelings are like. But sometimes we need an editor.

So here's the deal, my love, I will shut the fuck up on the wordiness but allow me to write it down. I will work with the best form of communication to be digested when you can stand it. I cannot promise to stop thinking. I can promise to do it in a manner that can be edited. If only I were as bleached as I look, right?

Smart

A long time ago I almost got into a knock down drag out fight with another comic and a booker about the intellect of stand up comics. I made that statement that you had to be bright to be a stand up. A successful stand up. They said not true. I still stand by this. To be a good comic….not a gimmick, not a hack…a genuine talent acknowledged as successful by the comics that work with you, you need to be a smart person. Sometimes its hard to tell, that’s all.

In Boston there is an unusual percentage of scientists and college educated stand up comics. That is because there is an unusual amount of colleges and universities here. Don’t take a genius to see that. In New York, I used to know a lot of lawyers who went into comedy. Greg Giraldo and Mike Sweeney (head writer of Conan) both came from a legal background. So, yeah, there are obviously highly educated people in comedy.

Then there are people like me. I suck at being educated. Even before the brain damage, I had trouble being formally educated. Verbally oriented subjects were easy for me. Analytical math and sciences like chemistry sounded like the adults in the Peanuts tv specials. For that reason, college and I didn’t mix well. The prerequisites in math and science discouraged the hell out of me because the majority of time in these classes was spent in a confused state. As soon as the math equations started building a second tier, I was fucked. There were too many levels and letters to make sense. Letters aren’t math. They are letters. Until I learned to play the piano, left and right confused me too. I think of them as treble and bass with sounds. My guess is that somewhere along the line, I had some kind of learning disability that I was smart enough to get around undetected. And I am very intelligent, just a bad student with social issues.

Some of the most brilliant minds that I know in comedy did not go to college. Some didn’t even finish high school. In some societies that put a higher value on formal education, this is grounds for less than adequate intellectual value. It is sad because a GPA does not make us bright. Try to get a normal person to find a premise, spin it into something unique and weave it into an act and see what happens. Not only does it take experience, it takes a mind that can spot a concept that is unique to their voice and has not been done by others. Knowing that it will garner the response of a laugh. A class in comedy can teach you what the techniques used are but it won’t teach you to tune in to the idea and cook it into a funny thought. 

To be good in stand up, it helps to be smart. To be great in stand up, you have to be brilliant (or a really great cheat that works very very hard). And that doesn’t mean bookish. It means sharp fine tuned thinking in a manner different from the rest of the herd that only a uniquely intelligent mind can produce. It means Louis CK, Greg Giraldo, Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, Joan Rivers, David Cross, Bill Hicks. Firecrackers in God's box of crayolas.

My Inner Child Has A Broken Head

Dear Inner Child,

Sorry about all of the bad hype you got in the '70's. I blame hippies and EST. People really made you sound like a pussy. And I don't mean the cat. I know.....kind of a crappy way to talk to a kid but, really, you are 47 years old. Maybe you should lighten up some?

Let's have a little talk, shall we? I know you are feeling a little put upon. You need a lot of affection and you just aren't feeling it. Logical Thinking over here says you reap what you sow but Logical Thinking also can be a heartless dick. All the parts need to hear "I love you." I mean, you and Self Worth never really got along as it is and he is pinching you every chance he can get, isn't he? I don't have to be watching him every minute to know what a sneaky cow he can be. He bullies everyone when he doesn't feel well. He's been pushing us all around for years, running around with that ass Ego whispering ideas in his ear all of the time, whittling away at his energy and making him miserable to everyone in his path.

What I'm trying to say is, "Be patient," my friend. When you aren't here, it is positively no fun. Because all grown up no child makes Me a real downer. Some day you will hear those words and see a facebook status that gives you approval but for now, learn from what life is giving you. I know it hurts. But kicking on the floor won't help the loneliness go away. Only time will tell. So go be quiet. And stay out of the cookie jar until after dinner. Self Worth can't handle the calorie intake without a melt down.

XXOO

Watching The Candle That Burns Too Bright. Our Margaret.

I was always a little surprised that I referred to Margaret as my friend. It wasn't an easy thing to be. She emotionally drained most people that came into her light. We all understood that she was special and brilliant and, most importantly, crazy as a bedbug so we forgave her and managed our relationships with intermittent vacations from the drama. None of us were surprised when she was dead although alone asleep in her hospital bed from a heart attack at 39 wasn't the demise that we assumed.

Margaret was a star. She would tell you that herself. In most cases, this would just be part of the delusion. But Margaret actually starred in a television show with large muppets for a short run and probably would have been huge if she wasn't so bloody off the chain. Even at her worst, when she refused to put on a skirt that wasn't cut up to her crotch on the bottom and down to her hip line with her midriff exposed in the dead of winter, she could hop up on stage and be lucid and genius. Then she would come down again and obsess over a man who would desperately try to run in the other direction from her if he saw her first, try to get her doctor feel good to give her another prescription pill and plot the plastic surgery on her face that would detract from her horrifically thin body that she insisted was just fine because she was skinny.

She had gone into the psychiatric ward a couple of times before she died there. Every time they arrived at a new diagnosis, giving her pills that they would claim she was addicted to the very last time. Her doctor drilled me for proof that she was a drug addict and I told him that I was more concerned that she looked like a skeleton and boasted that she had cut down on her laxative intake. She never told all of the people bringing her sweets that about 5 others were coming as well carrying boxes of apple donuts and cheescake. I doubt she ate other food. I doubt that she kept it in her body when she did since they were looking for pills, not eating disorders. She gained about twenty pounds in a month on a physique that I spent hours analyzing in detail as I debated her throughout an entire night that she was indeed starving to death. Her argument was that she fit the same clothes in a picture that was from the past. I argued that her face was sinking in because you couldn't get smaller than skeleton which is the size she was when the photo was taken....she had gone from bone sized to sunken skeletal. She had a heart attack at 39 (or 29 if you ask me her last name) after gaining weight rapidly. You put it together.

Poor Margaret. I told her mom that I don't think that anything shy of having her live in an institution would have kept her alive. She was cunning and manipulative. Her brain told her the most insane reasons to want things and she would attack her wants like a tiny pitbull.  You could not remove the want from her head. She would rather die than change her mind. She would have gone back to her eating disorder driven, obsessive ways as soon as she was out of the hospital. She would have o.d.-ed on perscription pills because she didn't have food to handle the quantity or taken too many laxatives or picked up the wrong man because he looked rich and told her the right things. It wouldn't have ended well. You wonder why God would give someone such a lot in life. But then again, she shone a hundred times harder than most humans ever dreamed of being.

Her energy was relentless, her brain so smart, her determination obsessive. Success was the only thing she could cope with in her head. She had to feel hard. She performed like she knew someone was going to steal her vocal chords or cut off her hands the next day. There was no half assed. There was no wasting time. She was a bomb that hit the earth and blinded us and then died out so fast that I didn't have a chance to digest what the hell she was till now. Some of us are gone a long time before we are missed like we should be because it takes so long to see again from the light they blew into our eyes.

I miss you, my terrifying friend. I wonder how you ever could have lived out here in the world as an adult that aged and dulled. Some of us leave young because that is when we are done. The light went out. We moved on. I can still feel you shine next to me though. You live on because we will see the tiny dazzling sparkle of you in the corners of our eyes.